Try Again
by Riori
Summary: Prime. "Thirteen Primes of Primus, thirteen shards of life, thirteen seeds of darkness, and one empathetic light." An old gift of Unicron's makes its way back to its master, but Primus, weak as he is in the wake of Cybertron's death, sends someone to stop it. But what he has planned could decide the fate of worlds... but one must hope she is enough. Rated T for safety.
1. Prologue: Awakening

_This is a Transformers fanfiction, based in the cartoon-verse of Transformers: Prime. All rights go to their respective owners for the entirety of this fanfiction, and this is written only for purely entertainment and writing experience._

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><p><em><strong>Try Again<strong>__**  
>Prologue: Awakening<strong>_

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><p>It was hot.<p>

That was the first thing she noticed as she came-to: a radiating, suffocating heat. It wasn't enough to hurt her, but it did make her uncomfortable as she slowly regained feeling in her structure.

She felt a force weigh heavily against her, and it took her a moment to regain function of her eyes. _Optics,_ her processor corrected. She onlined them, but quickly switched them off again when she was blinded by light.

Her structure squirmed as she tried to lift an arm. Forces seemed to be working against her, and she felt far too weak to do anything. She was dizzy, and it felt like the world was spinning far too fast—and she felt panic start to stir within her.

Then, before she thought that it couldn't get any worse than this, the world exploded.

The heat grew to terrifying levels, the noise—which had been a groan at first—had erupted into an overwhelming assortment, and she was sent flying with a catapulting explosion.

She skidded over the ground, everything in a whirl, before coming to a halt on her back. Pain registered all over, blinding her in more ways than one. It was all she could focus on for a few minutes—_kliks_—before she noticed the world had gone silent. The fire had died down, but with the exception of some crackling flames, she could only hear her fans whirling as she tried to ventilate to prevent her systems from overheating.

It seemed to work, as she regained more control of her functions, but she was still in pitiful shape. She was thankful that the world had stopped spinning.

Venting suddenly got a lot harder, and her structure jerked as it tried to get rid of whatever was getting caught in her fans—and, from what she could tell, her throat. Her optics onlined as she rolled her structure onto its front, using her servos to lift herself off the ground. She collapsed back onto it after another jerk.

She was staring at the ground, trying to focus her optics onto it as she gave rough sounds that made the word _cough_ come to mind.

Brown dirt and clumps of green grass came into focus. It was late, if the heavy darkness said anything—_late? Late for what?_

She had to offline her optics as more coughs rattled her structure. After a few nano-kilks it became semi-easier to ventilate, and she onlined her optics again. Black specks danced across her vision and she became aware of the smoke in the air—no doubt what had gotten caught in her system.

She was startled when something slid over her vision with a whirl and a click. Everything suddenly became strikingly bold and it was sudden much easier to brea—_ventilate_.

_Faceplate,_ her processors continued, referring to the mask over her face.

Managing to push herself off the ground, she circulated air a few more times on her servos and knee-joints, before looking around again.

She was looking into a sunset. The image was mostly ruined by the wreckage around her: pieces of metal jutting out of the ground, trees knocked over, dirt overturned, embers and small fires still going... as she turned her head around, she could even see the trail of smoke in the sky that was in the wake of the crash-landing.

_Crash-landing; was that what happened?_

She sat straight up and stiffened, startled at this line of thought, and then immediately regretted it when internal alarms rang in her head and pain crashed through her structure. She curled up on her side on the ground, clutching at the side of her chassis where she felt something wet with her servos: _energon._

She grew nervous despite the beauty of the sunset and it's reflection on the clouds above.

Where was she? _Earth._ How does she know this?

No response from her processor, unlike before. All she knew was the crash and the here-and-now.

But, _Primus_, she needs help.

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><p><em><strong>So, after much time not publishing anything, I come up with this. At the moment, I barely have a plot, and I don't even have a name for this character—talk about starting with barely anything. Bleh—but, if any of you happen to have a suggestion for a name for her, even with the very limited information presented, then I'd love to listen to them~ (review or private message—your choice).<strong>_

_**I don't know how often I'll update this. I leave no promises that I'll actually get anywhere with this, but every review helps. (pls no flames...)**_


	2. Chapter 1: Scanning

_**Try Again**__**  
>Chapter One: Scanning<strong>_

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><p>Millennia ago, a being stood silently in his grand hall. He gazed out the invisible glass to gaze at his world: gleaming buildings reaching into the sky, the happy cries of his citizens, their sun falling back over the distant plains. It was his most precious achievement.<p>

The sound of clinking, hurried footsteps echoed through the grand walls, and he looked over his shoulder. Alpha Trion, one of his Thirteen, glanced around the room before hurrying to his side. "Primus... the Quill just did something strange." He held up the metal quill with one servo, and Primus noticed his covenants, the Covenant of Primus, in Trion's other servo.

"Start from the beginning, Alpha Trion," Primus spoke.

Alpha Trion, the records keeper of the Primes, ventilated once before speaking. "I was sitting at my desk, listening to Solus babble on and on about Megatronus messing with her Forge, when I noticed the Quill start to move on its own."

"On its own? Curious."

"_Curious_? That's not exactly what I would describe what it wrote in your Covenant."

"And what did it write?"

Alpha Trion held up the Covenant and flipped it to a specific page. Primus' eyes flickered over the page, catching sight of the smallest and most recently written verse:

"_Darkness rises."_

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><p>"The energon ejection valve can only be operated manually," Ratchet instructed over the secured line.<p>

The children's unison cry on the other end of the line made him give a dry chuckle. They were evidently not amused by the news.

He ignored them as they talked amongst themselves; they would call him if they needed him. He looked away from the communications screen and instead moved over to the side, closest to where the other members of Team Prime were trapped in stasis-lock. There was another screen there, the one he used when he acted as a medic, filled with information from the constant scans he had going on Optimus, Bulkhead, Arcee, and Bumblebee. Optimus' showed some damage made to his structure that he couldn't fix until the stasis faded, which would worry him to the Earth's moon and back until he could fix it.

The three human children, Rafael, Miko, and Jack, as well as the presently-unconscious Agent Fowler, had bridged onto the Nemesis, the Decepticon warship. From what he could tell, the ship had been given dark energon, instead of normal energon, after the ship had gained massive damage after it had crashed. It had caused the warship to become sentient—a sentience that didn't want anyone getting in the way of its task of collecting the Iacon relics. The humans were there, taking advantage of the fact that everyone on the ship was in a similar stasis-lock as his team mates were. The ship was currently only looking for cybertronian life forms, not organic, so they were safe. _For the moment._

A beeping caught his attention, and he rushed back over to the main screens to stare at lines of Cybertronian scroll across the screen, reciting co-ordinates and the fact that a _landfall was occurring at this exact moment._

_I really don't need this kind of scrap at this moment, Primus._

Ratchet snapped his head over to the communication screens when he heard startled yells from Rafael and Miko, forgetting about the incoming cybertronian for a few nano-kliks.

"_Jack, no!"_

"_Run for it!"_

He stayed there, frozen, as he listened hard to what was happening on the Nemesis. The ship had likely just widened its search parameter. There was a couple more yells from Jack before a large bang echoed resounded through the link, making him cringe. A few more seconds of silence reached over the communications before Jack spoke.

"_Run."_

Suddenly, there was movement to the left of him. The stasis-lock faded from the rest of Team Prime, starting with Optimus, whose mask retracted as he clutched his head for a moment. The others followed, and he watched as they either gave themselves a shake, or rubbed their heads.

Ratched ventilated as he uttered, "thank the Allspark." It was a relief to have everyone no longer frozen in a strange version of stasis-lock. _The decepticons are probably also coming out of the stasis-lock,_ he figured. _But I'm glad the children succeeded._

"_Ratchet!"_

He turned back to the communication screen at Jack's shout, keenly listening as Optimus, Arcee, Bulkhead, and Bumblebee regained their senses.

"_Fire up the groundbridge!"_

Ratchet quickly responded, selecting the children's current co-ordinated, and pulling the lever to open a groundbridge. He watched as Miko and Rafael appeared with Agent Fowler's arms strung over their shoulders. The agent appeared dazed, and he was muttering nonsense under his breath.

"Ratchet, Jack's still back there!" Raf quickly explained as they dragged Agent Fowler over to a human-sized berth.

Ratchet couldn't help but vent. Jack was too much like Optimus sometimes—wouldn't let a job go unfinished.

He rushed through the bridge.

As he came out the other side, he saw Knock Out hovering over Jack with a servo switched-out for a drill, terrorizing the human.

"I'm here to offer a second opinion!" Ratchet couldn't help but shout, catching the medic's attention. As soon as he turned around, Ratchet threw a punch, hitting him over the head and causing Knock Out to fall to the floor, dazed.

Before he could get up, Ratchet grasped Jack with one servo, and pulled the transfer drive out of the workstation with the other.

He rushed through the groundbridge, watching it close behind him as soon as he ran through it. He placed Jack on the floor, who let out a, "thanks, Ratchet," before running over to the now-awake Arcee.

Ratchet watched him for a moment, then his eyes drifted to each pair of humans and autobots. They were delighted to have their friends back in working order.

His eyes drifted to the drive in his servo. Taking it over to the main computer, he quickly downloaded the info, watching as the four deciphered co-ordinates appeared on an empty screen. "Optimus?"

Optimus Prime, who had taken the time to also watch the interaction between 'bot and human, stepped over to stand by his old friend, his eyes flickering to the screens. "Ratchet, what is this?" he questioned, gesturing to the lone co-ordinates off to the side that still flashed. This caught the other autobot's attention, bringing them close to the main screens.

"A landfall, Optimus. But—"

"A landfall? What's a landfall?" Miko curiously asked.

Optimus answered, glancing down at the aggravating child. "It is when a cybertronian falls onto a planet's surface from space."

"So we don't actually know if it's an autobot or not?" Jack questioned.

"If they haven't gone and blocked their energy signature, we'll be able to tell with a bit of scanning," Arcee explained, gesturing to the computer.

"But Optimus, we don't have time for that," Ratchet began again. "The download of the Iacon database may have been incomplete, but we now possess four sets of co-ordinates decoded by the ship, and—"

This time is was Optimus who stopped him before he could continue ranting. "Then we must act quickly, I understand, Ratchet, for Megatron possesses the same four sets." He paused, and Ratched spied the small hint of a troubled expression. "And he will not hesitate to obtain the potential doomsday devices which lie at the sight of each."

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><p><em><strong>The next (first) chapter is up now! (Yay!) So this starts during the episode 'Flying Mind' during the second season, and I admit that some of the speech is the same. I tried not to add ALL the speech during some parts, and I added some of my own and a slightly different end.<strong>_

_**And I admit, I'm still looking for a name for my character... :P**_


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